Punch (99.1890)

292 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 20, 1890.

A LAY OF LONDON.

Oh, London is a pleasant place to live the whole year through,
I love it 'neath November's pall, or Summer's rarest blue,
When leafy planes to city courts still tell the tale of June,
Or when the homely fog brings out the lamplighter at noon.

I thought to go awav this year, and yet in town I am.

I have not been to Hampstead Heath, much less to Amsterdam;

And now December's here again I do not feel the loss,

Though all the summer I've not been four miles from Charing Cross.

'Twas pleasant in the office
when we'd gather in a
bunch,

A social, dreamy sort of
day, with lots of time for
lunch.

How commerce flagged Sep-
tember through, at 90,
Pinching Lane,
Till bronzed and bluff the
chief returned, and trade
revived again.

Why talk of Andalusia's
bulls, of Rocky-Mountain
bears,

Of Tyrolean alpenstocks—
though not of Alpen
shares;
Of seaside haunts where
fashion drives with coro-
netted panels,
Or briny nooks, when all
you need is pipes, and
books, and flannels.
Of orange-groves, and cloister'd courts, of fountains, and of pines,
Black shadows at whose edge the sun intolerably shines,
Of tumbled mountain heights, like waves on some Titanic sea,
Caught by an age of ice at once, and fix'd eternally.

Of quiet river-villages, which woods and waters frame,
Lull'd in tbe lap of loveliness to the music of their name;1
Of fallow-fields, of sheltered farms, of moorland and of mere:
Let others roam—I stay at home, and find their beauties here.

Not when the sun on London town incongruously smiles,
On the news-boys, and the traffic, and the advertisers' wiles ;
But when the solar orb has ceased to mark the flight of time,
And three yards off is nothingness—indefinite, sublime,—
Then in the City's teeming streets each soul can get its share,
Its concentrated essence of the high romance of air,
Whose cloudy symbols Keats beheld, and yearn'd to jot them down,
But anybody nowadays can swallow them in town.

There are, who, fain to dry the tear, and soothe the choking throat,
Would burn tbose tokens of the hearth that fondly o'er us float;
They cannot trace amid the gloom each dainty spire and whorl,
But smoke, to the true poet's eye, is never out of curl.

Tbe sardine in his oily den, his little house of tin,
Headless and heedless there he lies, no move of tail or fin,
Yet full as beauteous, I ween, that press'd and prison'd fish,
As when in sunny seas he swam unbroken to the dish.

A unit in the vasty world of waters far away,
We could nor taste his toothsome form, nor watoh his merry play,
But, prison'd thus, to fancy's eye, he brings his native seas,
The olive-groves of Southern France—perchance the Pyrenees.
The brown sails of the fishing-boats, the lithe sea-season'd crew,
Tb.e spray that shakes the sunlight off beneath the breezy blue,
The netted horde that shames the light with their refulgent sheen—
Such charm the gods who dwell on high have given the chill sardine.

So when we find long leagues of smoke compacted in the air,
'Tis not the philosophic part to murmur or to swear,
But patientiy unravelling, the threads will soon appear.
In oottage hearths, and burning weeds, and misty woodland sere.
The day is fading, all the West with sunset's glow is bright,
And island clouds of crimson float in depths of emerald light,
Like oiroles on a rippled lake the tints spread up the sky,
Till, mingling with the purple shade, they touch night's Bhore,
and die.

Down where the beech-trees, nearly bare, spread o'er the red-leaf'd
hill,

Where yet late-lingerers patter down, altho' the wind is still,

The cottage smoke olimbs thinly up, and shades the black-boled trees,

And hangs upon the misty air as blue as summer seas.

'Tis'this, in other guise, that wraps the town in sombre pall,
While like two endless funerals the lines of traffic crawl,
And from the abysmal vagueness where flows the turbid stream
Like madden'd nightmares neighing, the steamers hoarsely scream.

The Arab yearns for deserts free, the mariner for grog,
The hielan' laddie treads the heath, the croppy trots the bog;
The Switzer boasts his avalanche, the Eskimo his dog,
But only London in the world, can Bhow a London fog.

A WONDERFUL SHILLINGS WORTH.

My Deab Mb. Punch,—Fresh from the country (which has been
my perpetuil residence for the last twenty years), I came to London,
a few days ago, to visit an establishment which seemed to me to
represent that delight of my childhood, the Polytechnic Institution,
in the time of Professor Peppek's Ghost, and glass-blowing by
machinery. I need scarcely say that the Royal Aquarium was the
attraction, where a shilling entrance fee I imagined would procure
for me almost endless enjoyment.

I had seen the appetising programme —how the doors were opened
at 10 a.m., to close a good thirteen hours later—after a round of
novelties full of interest to a provincial sight-seer, to say nothing
of a Londoner. I entered and found the Variety Entertainment was
" on." I was about to walk into an enclosure, and seat myself in
a first-rate position for witnessing the gambols of some talented
wolves, when I was informed that I could not do this without
extra payment. Unwilling to "bang" an extra sixpence (two
had already been expended) I tried to find a gratuitous coign of
vantage, but (I am sorry to add) ,unsuccessfully. But I was not
to be disheartened. Could I not see " Kennedy, King Laughter-
Maker of the World," or " a Grand Billiard Match,'' or (more interest-
ing still) " the Performing Fleas " ? Yes, indeed I could, but only by
expending a shilling on the Mesmerist, a like sum for the Billiard
Match, and sixpence on the carefully-trained hoppers. Seeing that
'' the Wonderful and Beautiful Mystic Muriel " was in the building,
I attempted to interview her, but was stopped at the door by a demand
for the fifth of half-a-erown. A like sum stood as a barrier between me
and an entertainment that I was told was "described by Mr. Ridek
Haqgabd in his well-known romance, called She." Passing by a small
bower-like canvas erection, I was attracted by the declaration of its
custodian that it was "the most wonderful sight in the world," a
statement he made, he said, "without fear of contradiction." But
" Eve's Garden" (asthe Bmall bower-like canvas erection was called)
was inaccessible to those who did not expend the grudgingly-produced
but necessary sixpence. Foiled in this direction, I fain would have
visited the celebrated Beckwith Family performances, but was pre-
vented by finding that a shilling was the only passport to admission,
unless I happened to be a child, when the modified charge of sixpence
would be deemed sufficient. There was, however, one entertainment
almost free (only a penny was charged), an automatic sight-tester,
which pleased me greatly. By putting a copper in the slot, pressing
a pedal, and turning a handle, 1 learned that anyone could discover,
literally at a glance, the condition of his eyes. Had I not made up
my mind to disburse nothing further than the bare shilling I had
already expended, I should certainly have ascertained if the time
had arrived for my regretful assumption of a pinch-nose or a pair
of spectacles.

I.was now losing heart, when, to my great joy, I came upon " the
White Kangaroo, the Laughing Jackasses, &c," all of which were to be
seen "free gratis and for nothing." It is right, however, that I should
add that I found some difficulty in distinguishing " the White Kan-
garoo " from " the Laughing Jackasses," and both from " &o." I now
made for Mile. Paula's Crocodiles, but here, again, alas! I was
doomed to disappointment. As I approached the Reptile-House, in
which the fair dame was disporting herself (no doubt) amongst
" Indian Pythons and Boa Constrictors," I was warned off by the
legend, " Admission, Sixpence." It was then I remembered that,
after all, I was in an Aquarium, and, consequently, had no right to
expect anything but fish. So I approached the tanks, and, to my
great delight, found in one of them some floating bodies, that I am
almost sure must have been herrings. Having thus gratified my
curiosity for the strange and the curious, I returned, well satisfied, to
the country, where I purpose remaining a further term of next twenty
years. In the meanwhile, believe me, Dear Mr, Punch,

Yours sincerely, One Easily Pleased.

Something veey Big.—" The principal rule {Falstaff), in Vebdi's
new comic Opera is [amplified and enlarged," writes a special Corre-
spondent to The Standard, "from the Falstaff of the other plays
(besides the Merry Wives) in which he takes a part. Takes a
part!" Good Heavens! Falstaff "amplified and enlarged" will
be something more than a part. It will be that mathematical impos-
sibility, " a part greater than the whole," Surely, with such a role
in it, this oan't be a light Opera.